Oregon Humanities Spring 2008

Cover of Oregon Humanities Spring 2008
Kathleen Holt
EDITOR
Jennifer Viviano
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Leigh van der Werff
PUBLICATIONS ASSISTANT
Allison Dubinsky
COPY EDITOR
Editorial Advisory Board
Tom Booth
Brian Doyle
Debra Gwartney
Julia Heydon
Marianne Keddington-Lang
Guy Maynard
Win McCormack
Camela Raymond
Kate Sage
Rich Wandschneider
Curt Yehnert

Oregon Humanities, a journal of ideas and perspectives about the humanities, is published triannually by the Oregon Council for the Humanities, 812 SW Washington Street, Suite 225, Portland, Oregon 97205.

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Social Exercise

An interview with Danielle Allen about the practice of talking to strangers

In her 2004 book Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education, University of Chicago professor Danielle S. Allen analyzes the roots of civic distrust and suggests a movement toward "a citizenship of political friendship." Allen spoke with OCH's education program director, Jennifer Allen (no relation), about cultivating trust among our fellow citizens, most of whom are strangers to us, in order to imagine a shared future.

OH: You note in your book Talking to Strangers that fear is a huge reason people don't talk to strangers. But I wonder if it's not just fear, but isolation that is preventing us from interacting with each other. It seems like so many elements of our modern life isolate us, from our cars, to the way our cities are designed, to our socioeconomic class. How can we begin to address that kind of isolation and create situations in which we have the opportunity to talk to strangers?

Allen: Everything, from iPods to the media, is structured in ways that allow us to live in a zone where most of what we're hearing is what we agree with. I think that actually means we're having to be self-conscious about rebuilding the skills to [talk to strangers]. There actually are basic habits, basic skills, that are atrophying, and the only way to deal with that is to self-consciously practice rebuilding them. So, in just the same way that we need to exercise physically, I think we also have to exercise socially.

OH: It does seem that, given the way we spend time as adults, the huge opportunity is with young people or within an educational setting in which we might have a guide to help us in those early, difficult conversations. What kind of education, for young people and adults as well, could encourage this kind of individual effort?

Allen: I think it's really important that adults model the practice of coming to understand concepts like freedom and justice and respect for others. One bad habit that we have in the U.S. is trying to solve our problems at the level of children first. I think that's a little bit of a dodge, a cop-out. If adults aren't willing to do it themselves, why do we ask kids to do it? We could start by trying to encourage adults to model citizenly interactions and to try to take conversations with strangers to the point of being genuine exchanges, where the exchange is valuable because you contribute to the whole project of self-government that we're engaged in collectively. In the same way that a hundred and fifty years ago or so, people used to teach rhetoric and public speech, there's room for very basic instruction in the techniques of persuasive argument. These techniques could foster ways of attracting strangers.

OH: In Oregon, there's a huge focus on living locally, supporting small businesses and local farmers. Is it important to start small, especially when it comes to sacrifice and faith in strangers?

Allen: I do think starting small is critical. At the end of the day, in order to understand democratic practice fully, one needs to participate on a very small scale, because one can see the results of one's actions and understand one's agencies. So, essentially, those are very critical learning environments for understanding what democracy is and how it works and what it takes on the part of the citizen to keep it healthy and strong. That's one of the amazing inventions of our federal system--the fact that there are all these different levels and layers. As the global population grows, it becomes ever more important that small communities learn how to function democratically.

OH: A statistic in your book really stood out to me. It's a 2002 statistic that says that only 35 percent of Americans think people can be trusted, which is a sharp decline from just a generation ago. What do you attribute this to?

Allen: I think it's a range of sources. Mostly, I think it's simple population growth. Over the course of the last fifty years, the U.S. population has essentially doubled. I think that as these numbers increase, these kinds of issues get harder. The population is also more diverse than it's ever been. Diversity brings challenges. I think one of the main arguments of my book is that trust requires work, and citizenship in the context of diversity requires extra work. Diversity brings incredible intellectual and cultural richness, at a really high level, because so much of it can actually expand the range of knowledge, experience, and expertise to which a community has access.

OH: One of the words you use in your book is "sacrifice." You talk about citizenship as an act of negotiation, negotiating loss and reciprocity. What must we be willing to sacrifice in order to have a more successful democracy, and where can our greatest gains be made? Are there particular sacrifices that we should focus on if we're just getting started?

Allen: That's one of the questions that has to be answered at the local level because I think the answer is different in every context. But I think to give a general example: One of the hardest sacrifices is for a group that's in power to concede room around the decision-making table to groups that aren't in power. As demographics change or as situations change, then those who were initially in power but who are no longer in power can be assured of their own ongoing survival in a democratic context. It's an incredible mode of self-protection that doesn't just protect the party in power.

OH: You define "political friendship" as the recognition of what we share with the people who live around us. But if we don't have a place in common, are our laws the things that bind us, or is there some definition of what it means to be American that's necessary to unite us?

Allen: It is exactly at that moment that we have to recognize that the shared future of this country really is, at its core, about a political forum. It is a law, but in the sense of the rules of our culture and in the sense of a constitutionally oriented culture--and it's also a democratic forum. So the questions would be, "Are we having a conversation in which we ask whether or not, collectively, we share the vision of that?

Can we act on that vision in our local communities?" If [citizens] are willing to participate in that worldwide culture, in that democratic culture of respect for life as individual autonomy, they can continue to build this shared future. I think it requires depth in terms of shared cultural practices. But I do think there needs to be a constant articulation of the political values.

In other words, in the 1890s through the 1920s, this country faced multiple immigrations, and the result was an incredibly rich social capital base for the development of the country in the '20s through the '60s. So we've done it before. I have no doubt that we can do it again. I think it's just a matter of returning to focus on those political ideals that consistently make this country [one of] opportunity for a wide variety of people.

OH: And then also taking it as an opportunity to choose what will unite us rather than letting a series of events unfold. One of the challenges, I think, is that people who are frustrated with their role as citizens often talk about feeling really distrustful of government. So it seems like on the one hand, you're arguing for people to have a lot of trust in each other, but at the same time, you do acknowledge that it's important to be vigilant against government corruption. How can we balance trusting our fellow citizens with distrusting our government, ostensibly [a government] of the people?

Allen: The one little point that is ultimately pretty important is not so much that we should trust our fellow citizens, but that we should work hard to prove ourselves trustworthy to our fellow citizens. This is actually trustworthiness rather than trust. Trustworthiness generates trust. Our life is much better when we can and do trust our fellow citizens. If both parties are working to prove themselves trustworthy and to test the trustworthiness of others, then it starts to generate a culture where greater levels of trust are possible.


Published in the Spring 2008 issue of Oregon Humanities.

© 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities